But today, as the airline cleared the planes for take-off again, some employees went for a more traditional safety measure – sacrificing a black goat on the runway at Islamabad airport, only yards from the aircraft.

Social media users immediately leapt on the image, criticising the airline for putting superstition ahead of safety standards.

Twitter user Asim Yousafzai wrote: ‘This is no joke: #Pakistan invents a new safety measure for its crashing air carrier #PIA.’

PIA has historically had a poor reputation for safety and customer service but prior to the December 7 crash it had gone without incident for 10 years and received a 7 out of 7 rating on the highly-cited AirlineRatings.com, which launched its annual listing in 2013.

But a 2014 analysis by US statistician Nate Silver based on data from 1985-2014, found the airline to have had a consistently high number of what he termed ‘near-misses’ – an indicator of risk.